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As you can probably imagine, I've been drawing a lot of cave related things the last few years. Cave bats, cave bears, cave centipedes, etc. Put the word "cave" in front of anything and it changes everything. The next time you can't think of what to draw, try it. Cave Christmas. Cave unicycle. Cave birthday party. You get the picture.

This was drawn as an invitation to a Croods dinner. I wish the cavegirl's menu had been more cavey, but I ran out of time. Earlier in the making of this movie we did have a caveman menu. I was quite fond of it, and it made several appearances in my storyboards before ultimately being dropped for good. My caveman menu varied in its appearance, but it was always huge. In its simplest form it was a series of things painted on an outdoor rock wall. The cavemen would gather around it to choose what they would try and hunt for dinner. In it's final form it was two huge slabs of rock, angled against each other like an open menu. It dwarfed the people that used it. There were only two things pictured, one per page. On the first, a bird, on the other, an egg. Presumably the bird was the same one that had laid the egg. The point being that there were few options in the Croods' world, all of them being pretty simple. The more subtle message was that the Croods didn't have a strong hold on life - if that bird ever disappeared the Croods wouldn't be far behind.

This drawing would represent a slightly different take on the Crood world. A slightly more comfortable version.

Good morning! Well, a lot's been happening since I last posted. Croods is zooming along (more on that later) but on the home front the interesting thing is that our mugs have been selling well, and all have been arriving at their destinations in good time. Meanwhile, I've been scouring the country buying up as many of the Indian Red Polychromos pencils that I can, because I discovered during Dragons that I like drawing with them. The brick color is easy on the eyes and I think it blends nicely with the colors I might wash on afterwards. Unfortunately I ran out and after trips to three art supply stores I came up with only five pencils. So I began searching the internet and found that they seemed to be missing from the planet in general. There didn't seem to be a lack of green or blue pencils, leading me to wonder where Indian Red ones were coming from. I have several theories, ranging from dried reddish lemur dung to a deep mine in Mojave run by a smallish tribe of night dwelling trolls. The latter theory would explain the sporadic supply, as trolls are lazy and only trade their precious red minerals for bags of uncooked black beans and lengths of the manilla rope that they favor. It must be especially harrowing for the art-supply employee, elected by the choosing of a short straw, to drive into the desert at night and sit by the entrance of an open shaft with his bags of beans and coils of rope to listen for the scrabbling and scratching of troll claws as they come out of their terrible holes, offering handfuls of red mineral by moonlight. The skittish pencil salesman would allow his pockets to be filled with the precious red dirt and endure the occasional exploratory bite on his hands, then bid farewell to the monsters as they drag their rope and beans underground, chuckling and burping.

Thanks to the bold and adventurous men and women of the art supply industry I'm happy to report I received several boxes of the rare Indian Red pencils yesterday. So now I'm drawing again, and will be for many months before my stock is gone.

I've been writing Kiskaloo, preparing to start drawing again in late December. I always try to have a backlog of comics written before I draw, as my greatest anxiety is the writing. Once that's done, the drawing and inking is fun.

Okay, so I did the pink variant. I also added a pupil to the shark, which I didn't think I would like, but I did. So then I went back and added one to the blue version.

But the really important thing is that the new run of the Ogo mugs arrived today. We checked the first box and they look perfect, so soon you won't have to buy the haunted ones from Ebay. Last preparations are falling into place for the store, and it will be open within a few weeks. I'll keep you informed of the progress.

New drawing Thursday - This is a zebra shark. These sharks don't get a lot of press, because they're not one of the faster, pointy, toothy ones. But of you're looking for pleasing shapes, these can't be beat. They also have equally pleasing decorations. Stripes when they're young, transitioning to spots when they're adults. But they are not blue. I did that.

First of all, I wanted to thank everyone who came by my booth in San Diego - you're the reason I come down every year. Well, that and the colorful margaritas I reward myself with every night.

Anyway, I need to be better about using this Blog, so in a valiant first attempt, I'll post this.

I spent the Comic Con telling people they should always have a little bit of story in their drawings. I think that's good advice. So this year I'll try and do just that.

Now that I look at it, this girl needs some shoe laces blowing in the wind. And I need to fix her collar. I'll get on that tonight.

Oh, and in an Ogo mug update, the new batch is ordered and should be finished before the end of the month. We're setting up the store for on-line sales so as soon as the mugs arrive we can get them out. As for other things in the store, we tend to sell a lot of the stuff we bring to San Diego. But we have more Sketchbook 1X, about 15 of the Morgan mugs, and we'll start making art prints as well. More on that later.